PERSONALITY TYPE
AND
MEDICAL SPECIALTY
(Excerpt from” The ultimate guide to choosing a medical speciality”)
By
Brian Freeman, MD
Resident in Anesthesiology and Critical Care
University of Chicago Hospitals
Chicago, Illinois
What makes you tick? How do you handle stress? What gives you satisfaction and fulfillment?
How do you interact with your peers? These are all dimensions of a doctor’s personality.
Discerning your personality type is not simply finding a stereotype that fits. Instead, it means
identifying your distinctive attributes, values, and affinities and finding the natural comfort
zone where your true preferences lie as a physician.
Although it is especially important for doctors‐in‐training to select a specialty that is the best
match with their personality, best match does not mean it has to be perfect. Take a hard look at
the physicians you have met and make sure that your personality type is well represented
(rather than underrepresented) in the specialty that interests you. The notion that opposites
attract will probably not lead to a long, satisfying medical career. For instance, most physicians
would not dispute the idea that empathic, laid‐back medical students make better psychiatrists,
and strong‐minded, authoritarian, no‐nonsense ones should become surgeons. In these
examples, students find themselves most comfortable working side‐by‐side with other
physicians who share their personality traits. When you get along well with your colleagues,
patients end up receiving the best medical care possible.
Many physicians have studied the relationship between a doctor’s personality and chosen
specialty. A group of surgeons sought to determine whether there were differences in the
characteristics and temperament of physicians in three types of medical careers: surgical,
primary care (family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics), and controllable lifestyle
specialties (anesthesiology, dermatology, emergency medicine, neurology, ophthalmology,
pathology, psychiatry, and radiology).1 Most students think of surgeons as dominant,
uninhibited, and aggressive. They tend to overlook the fact that surgery requires a certain type
of person who can handle its tasks and challenges. Are you one of them? Their study found that
surgeons tend to score higher than other specialists on being extroverted, practical, social,
competitive, and structured. At the same time, however, surgeons were less creative than their
colleagues in controllable lifestyle specialties (who were found to be the most withdrawn and
rebellious). Neither group differed significantly from the primary care physicians. This particular
study, therefore, helps to support the idea that a physician’s satisfaction in a given specialty has
a lot to do with personality factors, like temperament and sociability.
Another landmark study surveyed a group of medical students to determine any relationships
between personality type and specialty choice.2 Students entering the hospital‐based
specialties (anesthesiology, radiology, or emergency medicine) had less tolerance for ambiguity
and preferred highly structured environments with fixed guidelines and immediate closure to
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every patient encounter. Future obstetrician‐gynecologists saw themselves as warm and
helpful, but they were also emotionally vulnerable, uncomfortable around others, and very
concerned about appearances and making a good impression. Future pediatricians, who sought
warm and close interactions with their patients, were the most extroverted and sociable
people. In contrast, the introverted students with fewer social connections—particularly the
ones who had been in psychotherapy themselves— became psychiatrists. The study also found
that students interested in surgery were more likely to be competitive, aggressive, and highly
confident. They were the doctors‐to‐be who carried a strong conviction that their actions could
rapidly influence the course of events.
When checking out all the different choices, medical students should keep in mind that more
than one specialty could meet their preferences. For every personality type, it is possible to find
a satisfying match with more than one area of medicine. If you are a visually oriented person,
consider specialties like pathology, dermatology, and radiology. For students who want to
speak only the language of medicine every day as a doctor’s doctor, radiology and pathology
are ideal choices. Primary care specialties, like internal medicine and family practice, are great
opportunities to have long‐term, intimate patient relationships. If you prefer an action‐oriented
specialty that gives immediate gratification, then consider anesthesiology, any surgical
subspecialty, and emergency medicine. Some areas overlap considerably—like the great variety
of medical problems encountered in both family practice and emergency medicine. But at the
same time, they can have significant differences—like the long‐term follow‐up nature of family
practice versus the acute, stabilize‐the‐patient‐and‐move‐on style of emergency medicine.
Thus, to make the best decision, you have to know yourself and your desires well.
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